Theodor Eicke

Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892-26 February 1943) was a German general and SS Obergruppenfuehrer during World War II, most famous for leading the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. Eicke was responsible for establishing several German concentration camps during the late 1930s and for the atrocities against prisoners of war and civilians committed under his watch during the campaigns in France and the Soviet Union. He was killed when his plane was shot down during the Third Battle of Kharkov in February 1943.

Biography
Theodor Eicke was born on 17 October 1892 in Hudingen, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire (present-day Hampont, France), and he served in a Bavarian infantry regiment during World War I. He served as a paymaster during the war, and he served in the police during the Interwar period and then at the IG Farben pharmaceutical company. On 1 December 1928, he joined the Nazi Party and SA, and he helped in building up the SS in Bavaria. In 1932, he was arrested by the Weimar Republic for planning bomb attacks on political enemies in Bavaria, but Heinrich Himmler arranged for him to escape to Italy.

Concentration camp inspector
In 1933, he became the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, and he was promoted to the SS rank of Brigadefuehrer on 30 January 1934. In May 1934, he became Concentration Camps Inspector, and his anti-Semitism and anti-communism made an impression on Adolf Hitler and Himmler. Eicke would help Hitler and the Nazis in the Night of the Long Knives, arresting and imprisoning SA commanders, and Eicke and Michael Lippert both executed Ernst Rohm in his cell. In 1935, he reorganized the concentration camps, opening new camps at Sachsenhausen in the summer of 1936, Buchenwald in the summer of 1937, Mauthausen-Gusen in 1938, and Ravensbruck in May 1939.

World War II and death
At the start of World War II, Eicke was given command of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, which gained the nickname Totenkopf from the "death's head" insignia worn on the shoulders of its soldiers. His division fought in Operation Barbarossa during the summer of 1941 and then the summer offensive of 1942, taking Kharkov and the Demyansk Pocket. His division was responsible for massacring POWs, and he plundered and pillaged several Soviet villages during the invasion of Russia. On 26 February 1943, he was killed during the Third Battle of Kharkov when his plane was shot down by the Red Army near the city of Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR.